Paxton supercharger

[Dwight]

I was visiting a buddy and to ride in his 70 Boss Mustang that he bought new. Nice car. But later we got to looking thru all the Ford stuff he had on shelves. I should have taken more pics.

But on one shelf with a lot of other stuff was a Paxton supercharger for a Mustang.

He wants to sell it. If anyone is interest I can get you in contact with him. I can also get more pictures. I took a couple in the garage floor.
I don't know anything about the supercharge.

Dwight algunruner@aol.com

[Dwight]

anyone have a comment on the Paxton unit?

Dwight

[RodKnock]

You might have contact Craig Conley of Paradise Wheels, who bought out Paxton's stock of the older Paxton units many years ago. He'll know everything about the unit and its value.

About - Paradise Wheels

[Cokeman]

Cokeman here; Posting on computers is not what I do, so request group to over look mistakes. I am in need of carb settings for Holley carb to operate with a Paxton Supercharger, 1965 / 66 style. Car has never run property with Paxton installed. Have e-mailed Paradice Wheels, no reply, have e-mailed OVC, no reply, have contacted Las Vegas Shelby, stated they have on data on such an early car so equipped, current production are fuel injected.
Requesting any data, or leads to a person or company that may be in a position to offer aid.

[PeteF]

I installed a Paxton on a hipo 289 in a GT350 in the 80s. Instructions said to increase Holley jets sizes by 2, and install nitrofill (plastic) floats (to prevent them being crushed by the pressure). I also had to add an electric fuel pump to supplement the mechanical pump to prevent surging due to drop in fuel pressure on hard accelerations. If you maintain the stock 10.5:1 compression, you will need a ping control device, like made by Carter, to retard spark under hard acceleration. I also added fuel pressure and boost gauges to see what was going on. It ended up working well, but in hindsight it was not worth it to me. You can build a naturally aspirated engine today with just as much power, IMO.

[James Baldwin]

cokeman Is your carb a blowthru design?

[eschaider]

Some of these things are best left as historical artifacts.

Six decades ago I had a twin Paxton blown 312 Y-Block in a 57 Fairlane 500. To get the carbs to work with the Paxtons I had to use cast aluminum air boxes that enclosed each carb with a provision for the throttle shaft to exit for control by the throttle linkage. Until I added the air boxes to the carbs the engine wouldn't run under boost, at all! The problem was normalizing the pressure between the throttle bores and the float bowls.

Today Holley sells carbs that compensate for this by design and with no need for the carb enclosures. If you do not have the Holley carbs then you need the air boxes for the carbs. The new Holley carbs are much easier to work with.

This is a link to a 750 cfm Holley four barrel that is designed for blow through supercharged use, click here => Holley Blow Through Carb. It does not require an air box because it has been designed to internally normalize the pressure between the Venturis and the float bowls.

In addition to either the carb air boxes or the blower carb you will experience another aggravating challenge. The blower drives on those early Paxtons used five large (Inch or Inch and a Quarter) steel ball bearings that transmitted the drive torque from the drive belt to the blower. Even cleaned and lubricated these drives would fail with a regularity that was frustrating.

In fairness a lot of the failure was associated with running the blowers at high boost vs low boost. The problem for me, at the time, was low boost was not particularly impressive. The blower drives were/are (assuming they are still available) impressively expensive,

If you really want to use a centrifugal compressor today, I would use a modern design available in today's aftermarket. Names that quickly come to mind are All American Billet, the new Paxtons, ProCharger, RIPP and Vortech. This particular path to supercharging or almost any for that matter is not inexpensive.

When you are done, intuitively you will expect thunderous power at the touch of the gas pedal — except it will not be there. The engine speed has to get high enough to get the compressor into positive pressure before your seat of the pants dyno will register anything.

If you are looking for that immediate hit on your seat of the pants dyno, it won't be there! If the immediate hit is important to you you will need a positive displacement (PD) compressor. There are two broad types available, the roots design and the twin screw design. Both will have a stunning response on your seat of the pants dyno when you first touch the throttle. The roots falls off quickly because of design inefficiencies. The twin screw does not. In fact it will pull until you drive over your crankshaft which I can tell you from personal experience is not a happy event.

Blowers are a lot of fun and if you are not prudent an even bigger expense — but the PD blowers will live up to your intuitive seat of the pants dyno expectations and then some ...

[jts359]

I have had a few a Paxton supercharged Studebakers , The R-2 variety used a blow thru AFB Carb and a 1/4" tube between the supercharger and the fuel pump which equalized the pressure in the carb , The carb is special in the fact it is a sealed in a few areas , The R-3 version used a pressure box , A SN 60 Paxton would put out between 5 and 6 lbs of boost on a good day , And a side note Studebaker owned Paxton back in the day, Ed